zgHsaams^Er 


A  DISCOURSE, 

BY    THE    REV.    W  .    W.    LORD,    D  .  D 


IN  UONOR    OF 


CAPT.  PAUL  HAMILTON, 

ADJUTANT  GENERAL,  THIRD  BRIGADE,  ARMY  OF  MISS., 

KILLED  IN  THE  BATTLE  OF  CHICKASAW  BAYOU,  DEC.  29th,  1863. 

BUKIED  FROM  CHRIST  CHURCH,  VICKSBl  RQ,  DECEMBER  31. 

COMMEMORATED   IN  THIS  DISCOURSE 
Sunday,  January  4th,  1863. 


So  sleep  the  bntre  who  sink  (o  rest. 
With  all  their  country's  wishes  blest. 


VICKSBURG: 

PBINTBD  UY    M.   BHAXMON,   PKOI'RIETOR   OK  THK   DAILY   WHIG. 

18153. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2011  with  funding  from 
Duke  University  Libraries 


http://www.archive.org/details/discoursebyrevwwOOIord 


Kii 


DISCOURSE. 


[  remsmbered  God,  ani  was  troubled;  I  complaine  3  and  my  spirit  was 
overwhelmed.— Psalms,  87:  3. 

Those  who  heard  the  announcement  of  my  dis- 
course are  prepared  to  hear  me  deplore  the  untimely 
death  of  that  gallant  and  ill-fated  young  man,  whose 
mortal  remains  were  lately  borne  from  this  church 
to  the  place  where  his  dust  will  mingle  with  that  of 
others  amongst  the  heroic  dead.  And  deeply,  by 
all  my  human  sympathies  and  all  my  patriotic  feel- 
ings, do  I  deplore  it. 

It  was  that  fair  and  open  countenance  upon  which 
N:\ture  had  written  the  words  noble,  loyal  and  hue — 
that  free  which  I  recently  saw  before  me  in  this 

I  very  place,  so  bright,  and  animated  with  informing 
mind,  and  that  erect  and  manly  figure,  full  of  life 

^md  vigor,  contrasted  with  the  prostrate  and  mu- 
tilated form  that,  so  soon  afterwards,  was  borne,  in 
its  black  coffin,  past  the  very  place  where  he  had 
sat  with  no  presentiment  of  the  dark  shadow  that 


OtB 


was  to  fell  upon  the  spot — it  was  the  sudden  change 
of  life  and  youth  and  brilliant  promise,  to  death 
and  grief  and  bitter  disappointment,  that  made  my 
heart,  as  it  mused  upon  that  strange  vicissitude, 
burn  within  me,  and  prompted  it  to  ask  of  what- 
ever faculty  in  my  nature  had  power  to  answer  it, 
these  grave  and  importunate  questions :  First — 
assuming  the  righteousness  of  our  cause,  can  Di- 
vine Providence  be  justified  in  view  of  a  consequence 
like  this?  And  next — if  that  were  done,  is  Liberty 
worth  so  much? 

Like  Asaph,  in  the  text,  I  remembered  God,  and 
was  troubled.  The  mysterious  language  of  the 
Psalmist,  suddenly  became  plain.  I  was  troubled 
because  I  remembered  God,  and  his  great  attribute, 
justice. 

And, looking  upon  the  harvest  which  Death  is  now 
reaping  in  the  broad  harvest-field  of  this  Southern 
land,  contemplating  the  untold  amount  of  human 
suffering,  public  loss  and  private  grief  which  this 
war  has  inflicted  upon  both  the  parties  engaged  in 
it,  there  is  no  thoughtful  mind  but  must,  at  times, 
ask  itself— Was  War  ever  intended  by  Providence 


,y.->m-M*MW  »ww:n»  awr 


to  be  the  means  of  settling  national  controversies 
and  adjusting  the  relations  of  political  communities? 
And,  if  it  was,  then,  with  what  justice? — since  every 
war  must  be  practically  waged,  its  perilous  battles 
fought,  and  grievous  burdens  borne  by  those,  on 
either  side,  who  are,  for  the  most  part,  innocent  of 
the  injustice  and  irresponsible  for  the  causes  that 
precipitated  the  conflict.  Thus,  upon  the  side  of 
our  present  enemies,  the  ruthless  Statesmen  whose 
ambition  occasioned,  and  he  above  all,  whose  procla- 
mation created  the  Avar,  sit  secure  in  places  of 
safety  and  power,  while  thousands  who  were  drag- 
ged by  their  action  into  the  disastrous  struggle,  lie 
buried,  far  from  domestic  graves,  in  soil  that  if  it 
could  be  made  conscious  of  their  abhorred  presence, 
would  cast  them  forth,  and  refuse  them  sepulture. 

But  stranger  still — if  war  be  the  divine  ordeal 
for  the  trial  of  great  national  disputes— stranger, 
and  more  staggeiing  to  our  faith,  and  not  less  won- 
derful because  indisputable,  nor  less  inexplicable 
because  so  frequently  met  with  in  history,  is  the  fact 
that  the  righteous  cause  is  maintained  by  the  weaker 
party;  and   ilia t   thousands  of  brave   youths   and 


6 


useful  men  must  be  sacrificed  to  the  injustice  of  the 
strong,  and  sleep  in  bloody  graves,  for  t'le  sake  of 
a  cause  that  has  been  already  adjudged,  and  pre- 
ordained to  success,  by  Heaven. 

I  do  not  know  that  I  can  successfully  rise  to  the 
call  that  bids  me  appear  and  answer  for  God  in  the 
Court  of  human  conscience;  or,  if  with  success,  that 
I  can  without  impiety, 

"  Attempt  the  height  of  that  great  argument 
That  justifies  the  ways  of  God  to  man." 

But  I  cannot,  as  a  believer  in  Holy  Scripture,  be- 
lieving also  in  a  Divine  Providence  in  history,  deny 
that  He  permits  the  awful  arbitration  cf  war;  and 
even  authorizes  it  in  cases  of  manifest  oppression, 
and  injustice  not  otherwise  to  be  resisted  or  remedied. 
Often  and  again  did  the  Israelites  ask  Him,  if.they 
should  go  up  to  battle,  and  the  jewels  of  the  Sacred 
Urim  flashed  forth  the  oracle,  or  the  lips  of  the 
inspired  prophet  uttered  the  response — Go  up — for 
I  am  with  you.  He  styles  Himself  the  God  of 
battles;  and  one  of  his  most  frequent  names  amongst 
the  Hebrews  was  Jehovah  Sabaoth — Jehovah  of 
Armies — or,  as  we  have  it  translated,  the  Lord  of 


Hosts.  And  iu  the  noblest  anthem  of  the  Christian 
Church,  the  Te  Deum  of  St.  Ambrose,  we  repeat 
the  everlasting  invocation  of  the  angels,  Holy, 
Holy,  Holy  Lord  God  of  Sabaoth.  Here  the  God 
of  Armies,  is  affirmed  to  be  holy.  It  is  inferred 
that  He  is  the  Providence  of  war,  and  at  the  same 
time,  blameless  for  the  wars  which  armies,  under  His 
Providential  direction  wage,  and  innocent  of  all  the 
crimes  and  afflictions  of  war. 

Moses,  in  his  song  of  victory,  by  a  figure  of  sur- 
passing boldness,  makes  Him,  himself,  a  Warrior. 
"  The  Lord  is  a  Man  of  war  :  the  Lord  is  his  name." 
And  yet,  in  the  words  of  the  same  inspiration, 
"Thou  continuest  holy,0  thou  Worship  of  Israel!" 

It  is  not  difficult,  however,  to  explain  this  appa- 
rent inconsistency.     He,  who 

Binding  Nature  fast  in  Fate, 
Left  free  the  human  Will, 

could  not  make  a  world  in  which  war  should  not 
exist,  unless,  at  least,  he  had  left  man  out  of  it ;  or 
had  deprived  him  of  that  voluntary  power,  implying 
liberty  and  opportunity  to  his  evil  passions,  in  a 
word,  of  that  mysterious  Free-agency,  that  makes 
him  essentially  Man. 


Thus  arose  from  the  very  constitution  of  things 
that  law  by  which  a  lesser  evil  sometimes  becomes 
the  alternative  or  remedy  of  a  greater.     And  it  is 
by  that  law  that  war  exists;  and  that  the  state  of 
war  must  often  be  the  alternative  of  a  state  even 
worse  and  more  intolerable  than  war.     The  christian 
Economy,  therefore,  has  not  made  warfare  obsolete ; 
nor,  sad  as  the  reflection  is,  have  we  any  real  ground 
for  the  expectation  that  it  will  ever  accomplish  what, 
in  the  history  of  nearly  two  thousand  years,  it  has 
not  accomplished.     The  mild  principles  of  its  foun- 
der  will  never,  perhaps,  be  so  cordially  and  univer- 
sally accepted,  as  to  obviate  the  stern  necessity  of 
an  appeal  to  arms.     War  is  everywhere  in  the  New 
Testament,  as  in  the  Old,  assumed  to  be  the  occa- 
sional condition  of  society  to  the  end  of  time.     The 
predicted  Millenium  itself,  during  which  the  nations 
are  no  more  to  learn  war,  is  to  be  but  a  compar- 
atively short  interval  in  the  warlike  history  of  our 
race.     After  the  thousand  years  of  peace,  the  spirit 
of  war  will  again  be  loosed  :  and  wars  and  rumors  of 
wars,  are  put  by  Christ  himself  amongst  the  signs 
of  the  approaching   end    of   the    world.     Soldiers 
are  spoken  of,  and  the  duties  of  Christian  Soldiers, 


0 


as  if  the  order  was  expected  to  be  permanent.     The 

Christian  is  called  a  Soldier.     His  service  is  military, 

his  life  a  warfare.     He  is  compared  to  a  soldier  in 

every  point  of  soldierly  equipment  and  discipline. 

Christ  himself  is  called  the  Captain  of  our  Salva- 
tion. 

A  book  that  was  meant  to  be  perpetual  would  not 
certainly  be  so  full  of  martial  phrases,  figures  and 
comparisons,  doomed  to  become  obsolete,  when  in 
the  course  of  time  war  should  be  disused,  and  sol- 
diers cease  to  exist. 

It  is  true  that  Christianity  might  be  expected  to 
diminish  the  frequency  and  severity  of  wars :  and 
it  has  fulfilled  that  expectation.  The  influence 
which  the  Prince  of  Peace  has  diffiised  among  the 
nations  from  that  interior  kingdom  of  peace,  the 
Church,  in  which  he  invisibly  reigns,  has  mitigated 
the  sufferings  and  horrors  of  war  to  a  degree,  that 
as  little  as  we  can  now  realize  it,  makes  civilization 
the  infinite  debtor  of  Christianity.  It  has  actually 
created  what  are  called  the  rights  of  the  conquered. 
For,  in  ancient  times,  the  conquered  had  no  rights ; 
and  their  only  immuity  from  death  or  slavery,  lay 
in  the  mere  clemency  of  the  conqueror.  The  very 
wars  of  Christianity,  those  wars  of  which  Christ, 
foreseeing  they  would  arise,  said  in  the  spirit  of  pre- 


10 

diction,  and  not  of  determination,  "  I  come  not  to 
send  peace  but  a  sword,"  were  caused  by  the  ne- 
cessity that  Christianity  should  be  free  to  exert 
its  pacific  influence,  and  by  the  efforts  made  to  free 
it  from  bondage  to  the  interests,  the  prejudices  and 
the  passions  of  men.  So  that  they  were,  in  effect? 
wars  for  the  amelioration  of  war.  What,  for  in- 
stance, were  the  wars  of  the  Protestant  Reforma- 
tion but  a  mighty  conflict  waged  against  that  spirit 
of  bigotry  and  of  superstition,  which  had  introduced 
the  cruelties  of  heathenism  into  the  very  heart  of 
Christianity?  And  here,  too,  is  an  illustration  of 
my  first  position,  viz :  that  the  evils  of  war  ought 
sometimes  to  be  incurred  in  preference  to  the  greater 
evils  entailed  by  submission  to  despotic  power.  In 
vain  had  been  the  restoration  of  learning,  in  vain 
the  liberal  tastes  of  Leo,  and  the  elegant  erudition 
of  Erasmus,  in  vain  had  the  voice  of  Luther  "stir- 
red the  sluggish  heart  of  Germany  like  the  voice  of 
God,"  had  not  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts  en- 
tered the  hearts  of  the  Confederated  Princes  of 
Northern  Europe,  and  sustained  them  through  that 
dire  and  devastating  war  of  thirty  years,  which  has 
left  its  precious  result — precious  alike  to  the  pro- 
testant  and  the  catholic  world — civil  and  religious 
liberty.     A  result,  I   admit,  that  must  still,  occa- 


11 

sionally  be  again  contended  for,  and  re-asserted  and 
re-established  by  force  of  arms  :  but  that,  even  as 
it  has  hitherto  existed  amongst  our  ancestors  and 
ourselves,  has  been  the  cause  of  so  much  happiness 
and  prosperity  as  much  more  than  compensates  for 
the  bloody  and  arduous  struggle  by  which  it  was 
obtained,  and  justifies  our  present  unparalleled  efforts 
to  maintain  it. 

How  much  happier,  again,  would  it  have  been  for 
Ireland  if  with  one  mighty  effort,  at  the  cost  of 
whatever  temporary  suffering,  aud  loss  of  life,  she 
had,  centuries  ago,  broken  and  cast  of!  the  yoke  of 
England  from  her  neck.  If  as  late  even  as  the 
days  of  Cromwell,  when  England  could  put  forth  but 
half  her  force,  Ireland  had  put  forth  all  of  hers,  and, 
instead  of  becoming  cowed  and  subjugated  by  the 
usurper's  first  cruelties,  resisted  his  invading  legions, 
in  the  holy  names  of  God  and  her  women,  even  to 
the  death,  do  you  think  that  Ireland  and  her  people 
would  have  been  losers,  or  gainers,  in  the  sum  of 
human  happiness  ?  Would  generation  after  gener- 
ation of  Irishmen  have  shown  in  their  very  faces, 
the  mark  of  a  subjugated  people,  the  sign  man- 
ual of  the  oppressing  race,  in  the  effects  of  famine 
and  fever,  and  poverty,  and  discontent?  Would 
their  naturally  high  and  heroic  temper, — the  pcrfcr- 


12 


vidum  ingenium  of  Tacitus, — have  only  been  the 
occasion  of  increasing  their  own  misery,  and  of 
service  only  to  foreign  nations,  which  have  employed 
their  valor  and  drained  their  blood  in  alien  wars? 

God  avert  such  a  fate  from  a  people  not  less  no- 
ble in  impulse,  warm  of  temperament,  and  valiant 
of  heart — the  people  of  these  Southern  States ! 
And  that  He  has  determined  to  avert  it,  I  see  the 
proof  in  the  efforts  He  has  inspired  us  to  make  and 
the  suffering  He  has  fortified  us  to  bear  for  that  ap- 
parent purpose. 

The  object  which  can  alone  justify  war,  is,  on  our 
part,  the  only  object  for  which  the  war  is  waged. 
And  if  the  war  be  justifiable,  then  Providence  is 
justified  in  every  ordinary  incident  of  war,  including 
this  which  we  now  deplore.  Hard  as  was  the  fate 
of  the  promising  young  soldier  whose  death  has 
created  among  us  more  than  the  customary  feeling 
in  regard  to  such  events,  that  fate  was  not  singular 
nor  inglorious.  Long  before  the  youthful  hero  left 
his  heroic  State  to  die  here  on  heroic  ground,  and 
before  the  loot  of  the  first  marching  man  made  its 
first  step  towards  the  earliest  battle-field  of  the  war, 
the  soil  which  he  went  to  defend,  held  in  its  bosom 
the  precious  dust  of  many  a  gallant  youth,  who, 
like  him,  had  just  come  into  his  inheritance  of  noble 


13 

and  virtuous  manhood,  but  to  sacrifice  it,  with  all 
its  wealth  of  golden  expectations,  upon  the  altar  of 
his  country.  Over  the  mouldering  bodies  of  how 
many  such  as  he,  have  the  harvests  of  Virginia 
waved,  the  cornfields  of  Kentucky  rustled,  and  the 
savannahs  of  the  South  grown  green,  long  before 
he  was  born.  None  of  them,  perhaps,  had  been 
like  him,  in  thirty  battles.  None  ol  them,  it  can 
be  safely  said,  had  drawn  his  virgin  sword  in  a  cause 
so  entirely  just  and  holy.  Few  of  them  could  have 
earned  the  distinction,  which  his  chief  awarded  to 
him,  of  being  the  bravest  amongst  the  brave.  But 
the  sacred  fire  of  patriotism  that  burned  in  their 
hearts  was  the  same  that  burned  in  his,  and  that 
will  burn  forever  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  live 
upon  the  sacred  soil  that  covers  and  sepulchres  their 
dust. 

These  memories  of  the  patriotic  dead  naturally 
bring  me  to  my  second  question.  Conceding  all 
that  has  been  said,  and  that  when  the  body  politic 
requires  the  heroic  remedy  of  war,  Divine  Provi- 
dence is  not  to  be  blamed  for  the  incidental  suiler. 
ing;  admitting,  too,  that  the  death  of  those  who  die 
for  their  country,  and  dying  transmit  their  pious 
and  heroic  example  to  posterity,  is  not  without  its 
effect  in  excitiug  the  same  exalted  spirit  of  devo- 


14 

tion  in  others ; — still  the  question  recurs,  "  Is  liberty 
worth  so  much?" 

I  have  partly  answered  this  question  in  answer- 
ing the  other.  And  I  now  affirm  that  liberty  is 
worth  all  the  dangers  and  sufferings  of  the  state  of 
war ;  otherwise  war  would  not  have  been  made  the 
means  of  asserting  and  maintaining  it, 

Liberty,  it  has  been  said,  is  priceless.  And  what 
price  shall  we  think  to  put  upon  it,  when  we  see  the 
estimation  in  which  it  is  held  by  the  Southern 
heart;  when  we  see  mothers  give  up  their  sons,  and 
entire  communities  send  the  flower  of  their  youth 
where  Death  fills  his  ranks  by  conscription  from 
ours;  and  when  a  nation  "  coins  its  heart  and  drops 
its  blood  for  drachmas,"  nor  think  that  they  have 
purchased  liberty  at  too  great  a  cost.  For  they 
have  purchased  happiness,  and  long  exemption  from 
attempted  oppression  and  deliverance  from  intolera- 
ble wrongs,  for  all  who  survive.  And  in  the  most 
wasting  war  this  is  always  by  far  the  greatest  num- 
ber. Yes,  liberty  is  worth  the  price,  -even  when  we 
pay  so  much  as  the  recent  event  which  we  to-day 
lament,  makes  us  sensible  that  we  do.  It  is  worth 
our  life.  It  was  worth  even  that  of  the  chivalrous 
and  aspiring  youth  in  whom  we  mourn  its  extinc- 
tion.    Did  we  not  say  as  much,  when  we  mingled 


15 


Laurel  with  the  cypress,  in  the  wreath,  which  we  laid 
upon  his  coffin  ?  Did  we  not  imply  as  much,  in 
the  solemn  thanks  which  we  offered  "for  his  good 
example,"  as  we  stood  by  the  grave  where  all  of 
him  that  was  earth,  was  committed  to  the  earth  ? 
Did  we  not  attest  it,  and  even  make  the  life  he 
had  sacrificed  seem  of  less  value,  compared  with 
immortality,  when  we  prayed  that  we  might  "  with 
him,  have  our  perfect  consummation  and  bliss  "  in 
Heaven's  "  eternal  and  everlasting  glory?"  Did 
not  the  volley  that  was  fired  over  his  grave,  repeat 
and  re-echo  it  among  the  graves  that  cover  the  re- 
mains of  so  many  soldiers  of  this,  and  of  another 
war;  so  many  of  our  own  noble  and  cherished  dead, 
for  whom  we  wept  the  tears  that  will  be  wept  for 
him  in  his  distant  home  ?  I  know  little,  almost 
nothing,  of  his  history.  I  know  not  what  vows 
were  upon  his  head,  what  ties  were  around  his 
heart.  I  know  not  even  if  he  has  a  living  mother, 
to  weep  for  him,  and  when  all  others  shall  have  for- 
gotten to  weep,  still  to  bedew  his  memory  with  the! 
silent  tears  of  the  heart.  I  know  not  if  there  be, 
one  who,  when  his  companions  who  went  forth  with 
him,  shall  return  amid  rejoicings  to  their  home,  will/ 
exclaim,  Alas,  my  beautiful,  my  brave ! 

But  I  saw  strong  men  who  had  been  his  compan- 


1G 


( ions  in  arms  weep  manly  tears,  when  they  heard  of 
'his  death,  and  I  knew  that  a  great  soul  had  dwelt, 
and  a  warm  heart  once  beat  in  his  shattered  bosom. 

And  let  not  his  friends  in  the  far  off  State  of  his 
nativity  regret  the  impossibility  of  conveying  his 
remains  thither.  We  will  make  for  him,  or  rather 
he  has  made  for  himself — here  on  the  bank  of  the 
Mississippi  as  illustrious  a  grave  as  he  could  have 
found  upon  the  Atlantic  shore. 

Let  his  native  State  know  that  the  hero  she  gave 
us  we  have  given  to  his  country,  and  that  the  in- 
evitable conscription  of  Death  has  never  drawn  a 
braver  or  more  willing  conscript  than  answered  to 
'  the  name  of  Hamilton. 

What  the  Church  could  do  to  honor  his  remains, 

and   dignify  their  interment,  she   has  done.     His 

soul  is   in  the  hands  of  Him  who  in  life  filled  it 

with  high  and  noble  impulses;  and  who,  we  trust, 

!  has  still  higher  and  nobler  uses  for  it  in  death. 

A  strange  land,  which  is  yet  a  part  of  the  coun- 
try for  which  he  died,  has  received  him  with  equal 
i  grief  and  honor  into  its  bosom.     And  strangers  as 
1  we  are,  he  will  remain  in  our  hearts  so  long  as  they 

beat,  like  his,  responsive  to  the  voice  of  country,  and 
cherish,  in  our  countrymen,  the  memory  of  worth. 


